Service and supply contracting within a deployed and contingency operational environment are of great essence. A wide range of nations, including the United States, have utilized contractors in Warfare for years since the Revolutionary war to provide services such as security, logistics support, and field mass support ( Taggart, Ledford & Blyleven, 2016) . The Department of Defense addresses issues arising from military service planning by conducting operational contract support. The support entails procuring and making plans for construction, services, and supplies from commercial vendors for joint operations support. The OCS' top-down, bottom-up approach works across the joint environment from defense sectary's office down to the geographic combatant commands. The geographic combatant command in large multi-service operations has the option to designate LSC (lead service for contracting). The command also assigns JTSCC (joint theatre support contracting command) and LSCC (lead service for contracting coordination command) to offer the geographic control with the most efficient contracting support ( Taggart, Ledford & Blyleven, 2016) . The contracting coordination promotes better use of the local vendors by preventing duplicative efforts in contracting between designated contracting agencies. Contracted support, like any other sector in the constantly changing battlefield, brings with it challenges and problems. This essay is a discussion of the problems or issues within the framework of JTSCC operations.
The responsibility of JTSCC is to arrange and ensure the availability of accurate control and command structure during the command of operations. Normally, the JTSCC coordinates common contracting matters and executes all theatre support contracting activities with designated contracting firms delivering or executing contracted support within the joint operations area ( Taggart, Ledford & Blyleven, 2016) . JTSCC provides better control options that increase the ability of joint force commanders to enforce baseline for support standards and allows for more efficient utilization of professional contracting personnel. Moreover, it increases the capability of joint force commanders to link contract support to the operation plan's civil-military aspects.
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JTSCC’s primary task involves timely and effective synchronization of all theater support aspects under single command and control structures and offers the joint force command responsive contracting support. Another role involves a key secondary mandate for executing coordinating authorities over designates activities of contracting that support the joint force ( Joint Publication, 2019) . The contracting authority sometimes includes specific functions of theatre business clearance over the department of defense contracts with delivery or performance in the operational area.
JTSCC Challenges
The various challenges within the process of operating the JTSCC occur in planning. Planning for JTSCC established encounters a wide range of obstacles as a result of complexities such as associated workload analysis, command, supporting documentation of acquisition authority, and required staffing ( Joint Publication, 2019) . The geographic combatant suffers burdens in designating an LSC at the earliest time possible to eliminate gaps in contracting support with the intention of transforming its contracting activities into a JTSCC, possibly tied to specific trigger points or specified operations ( Joint Publication, 2019) . In most cases, the geographic combatant tasks the service component that forms the JTSCC to lead its planning efforts, although the effort can be spearheaded by the aligned contingency contracting activity.
The JTSCC application occurs effectively in lengthy, large, and intricate operations. The subordinate JFC in these operations requires more direct control of common actions of contracting that those accomplished in LSC or LSCC arrangements ( Taggart, Ledford & Blyleven, 2016) . JTSAA acts as a command and controls joint task force, often with complex control and authorities over contracting firms and individuals assigned with designated areas of operation. The contracting authority is not organic to the components of the combatant command service. Therefore, it incurs a burden of agreeing upon a contracting authority understanding early in the planning process. Planning for the agreements begins at the earliest stages. The JTSCC option comes with a myriad of extra requirements that require focus to function appropriately. The extra requirements include the implementation of new organizations, command and control relationships, and contracting procedures. Thee command also requires more lead time to get joint manning document approval and fill and requires every military service to issue head of contracting authority designation order ( Taggart, Ledford & Blyleven, 2016) . Complications in the existing contracts' transition cause confusion with the contractors and vendors, as well as closeout issues and compilation of historical data.
The JTSCC suffers from the challenges encountered by a wide range of support, such as contract integration and operational contract support. The various challenges of the operational contract support across all operations exist in the management of contractors, and integration of contract support its aspects. The various challenges of support in the operational contract include insufficiencies in the total force planning included in the department of defense personnel, contractors, and civilians. The challenge occurs because of failure to adequately plan for contractors ( Pardew, Rector & Sanders, 2017) . Operational planning, time-phased force deployment information, and unit task organization encompasses military strengths and units but mostly does not account for the size of the contract footprint or the contracts necessary for operational support. The use of contractors involves a wide range of considerations in planning and can have tremendous detrimental impacts on operations due to failure to account for them sufficiently.
The military provides government support in oversea theaters to contractors who reside on the United States operating base, or the foreign nationals. The contractors, authorized to accompany the force, are not sufficiently accounted for by the planning efforts, a challenge that promotes underestimation of a wide range of commodities of base life support ( Pardew, Rector & Sanders, 2017) . The military footprints necessary for the execution of operations reduce drastically as a result of the identification of locally available planning process commodities and services. Contractor utilization planning involves making a variety of considerations that include political factors, legal issues, and life support. Commanders must also determine whether the contractors can support the operational timelines effectively ( Pardew, Rector & Sanders, 2017) . Contractors often do not engage in rehearsal of business timeline synchronization drill concepts with the operational timelines. The timelines must be synchronized to include operational contract support planning as well as requirements development.
The JTSCC also faces the challenge of visibility. The department of defense personnel is blind to their contracts, and the operational contract support must realize the efficiencies by leveraging existing contracts and minimizing similar contracts ( Pardew, Rector & Sanders, 2017) . An effective system that can support contact visibility to fidelity levels needed in operations does not exist. The lack of visibility promotes inefficiencies in the use of contracts among services as well as mismanagement of limited resources. Inefficiencies also increase the cost of contracted commodities and services.
JTSCC faces contract support challenges associated with the operational contract support constructs and authorities. A wide range of LSC, LSCC, and JTSCC efforts, despite designation from the combatant commanders, encounter challenges due to the nature of service funding and the way they function with their service contracting structures. The commands should provide services with cross-coordinating capabilities to support operations, but lack the authority to require services to act outside their normal operations or capacities ( Pardew, Rector & Sanders, 2017) . While the commands' construct somehow minimizes their lack of directive authority, they present other major problems because of the various contracting activity services not readily prescribed to other services having directing authority to its contracting commodities or resources.
References
Joint Publication. (2019). Operational Contract Support. Retrieved from https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp4_10.pdf
Pardew, P., Rector, M., & Sanders, B. (2017). Joint operational contract support challenges. Retrieved from https://www.army.mil/article/189269/joint_operational_contract_support_challenges
Taggart, S. F., Ledford, J., & Blyleven, M. (2016). Flawed execution: a case study on operational contract support . Naval Postgraduate School Monterey United States.
